DIYYoungstown

This blog will follow me and my families new life in Youngstown, OH, where we plan to rehab homes. We found Youngstown on E-bay because the homes were selling for so cheap compared to most of the country. We took a road trip from Baltimore, MD where we are from, and realized Youngstown is a great place to get in on a growing area. We are very excited and love everything Youngstown has to offer.

Tuesday, September 11, 2007

I've been putting off another post till when we sell our house in baltimore and move into our westside Youngstown home. As EVERYONE knows, the housing market is slower than slow. We are so eager to start our new life in Youngstown but that won't happen until we can sell in Baltimore. I'm also eager to continue this blog I started on my new adventure in the Rust Belt. In the past 2 months, we have been making the not so grueling trip from Baltimore to Youngstown every few weeks. Mostly to make sure our yard is mowed so we don't tick off our neighbors or get a fine from the city! When we are in Youngstown, we can only stay for a few days at a time b/c currently, we have no shower, kitchen or running water except a toilet in our creepy basement. We sure do have our work cut out for us when we finally make the move permanently.

I'm trying to stay positive through this time of limbo, our house WILL sell and hopefully in the next 2-5 months we will be in our new Westside home!

Tuesday, June 12, 2007

So...here it goes! I've never started a blog before but I've been eager to write about and share my home renovation experiences. For those of you who don't know me, my husband and I are just finishing a house in Baltimore, MD. It's been a year long process and our first project is finally almost complete!

Our house is a MultiFamily, the 2nd floor is a 2bedroom 1bath apartment with a living room , dining room and kitchen. The first floor is where we've been living with 1bedroom, 1 bath, large basement, kitchen, living room, a large fenced in yard and a detatched garage.

The first thing we did when we moved in was demo the old kitchen and bathroom. With the empty apartment upstairs, we were able to use the kitchen and bathroom while remodeling the ones downstairs. It's really the perfect setup! We knocked down a few walls to make the kitchen bigger, moved the bathroom and made the old bathroom a walk in pantry.

The new bathroom has a HUGE custom 2 shower head shower, with slate and porcelin tiles. We love it and I think that will be what I miss most when we sell. the bathroom also has a new toilet and new sink and storage fixtures. We exposed all the original hardwoods throughout the entire house, sanded them and refinished them all. It's amazing what people will put over perfectly good hardwoods, I ripped up layers of crap!

As soon as we finished the first floor kitchen and bathroom we did a few updates to the apartment upstairs and rented it out 8 months after we bought the house. We have a great tennant and she loves the apartment!

So this week we are doing all the finishing touches and we a putting our first house/remodel project on the market. I really can't believe it. It has been bittersweet mostly because it's the first house for both me and my husband and now that it's done, we're moving to do it all over again!

We decided 5 months ago our next project would be in Youngstown, Ohio. It's a city going through a major renissance and we want to be a part of it! We already bought our house on the West Side of Youngstown and we both can't wait to get there this weekend and start demo.

This house is a single family home, 2 bedrooms, 1 bath, kitchen, dining room, living room and basement. There is a 2nd bathroom in the basement we will make workable so we can have something to use during demo. There is a lot of work to do, my biggest concern now is that our Baltimore house will sell quickly. It's really a great house and I'm sure many people will appreciate all the hard work we've put into it!

I hope my friends and family and anyone else enjoy this blog, I'll keep everyone updated on our new house and our new town. We'll be in Youngstown this weekend, then we'll be back and fourth to Baltimore until our house sells. Hope you enjoy my rantings!